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I’m not ashamed to say I have a shoe fetish, especially when it comes to high heels. In fact, I probably need to get some sort of therapy, such is my love for towering foot bling. Open my wardrobe and you’ll find them lovingly packed away in their original boxes, and I take great delight in matching my outfit to my footwear. When I walk out the door in a favourite pair I feel a million bucks.

My addiction to high heels is sometimes a problem given I’m five feet nine inches. Add an extra couple of inches or six to my frame and I end up well over six feet. So I use the shoes for strategic advantage in work situations. If I’m going to a meeting and I need to scare the client, I’ll make sure I wear the highest heels possible. But if I want to put the client in a position of power, I’ll choose lower ones.

My addiction to high heels is sometimes a problem given I’m five feet nine inches.

Anyway, massaging my tootsies one evening after a particularly gruelling day got me thinking. Could I be doing myself damage by wearing my stilettos? Am I sacrificing long-term physical strength for short-term pleasure?

I posed this question to podiatrist Dr Paul Dowie from Melbourne’s Foot and Leg Pain Clinics. Surprisingly – and thank goodness – he says it’s normal to get sore feet if you’re on them all day and that high heels are not necessarily bad for you. He says it’s about wearing the right shoe for the job.

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“If you work in retail and you’re in heels and on your feet all day, it’s all about your body and your genetics, the type of shoe you’re wearing and the structure of your feet. Some people are conditioned and adept at wearing high heels while others struggle,” Dowie says.

If you love wearing heels but you can’t cope with the pain, he suggests modifying your behaviour to reduce the impact of the heels. “If you have a desk job, think about how you get to work because wearing office shoes doesn’t always suit being in transit. If you catch the train and walk to and from the station, think about wearing runners instead. Wearing multiple pairs of shoes can help you to cope.”

In fact, Dowie says wearing flat shoes can be just as much of a problem for your feet as wearing heels. Take a look at the shoes you’re wearing at the moment and look at the ‘’pitch’’ or elevation of the heel. According to Dowie, a pitch of around four centimetres helps propel you forward and results in less strain and pain. But he says there’s no universal heel height that is considered ‘’right’’.

“You also have to factor in the psychological aspect. People who are vertically challenged often wear heels to increase their confidence,” he argues.

I’m pretty much flabbergasted when he says this – it’s not at all what I expected a foot doctor to say. But it’s a sentiment with which Jodie Fox, who runs Shoes of Prey, a business that allows customers to design their own shoes, agrees.

“If I go to a board meeting I wear high heels; it’s part of creating a sense of gravitas. Plus the two co-founders of the business are very tall and I’m not. So it’s also about standing at an even height,” she explains.

Fox says high heels are a way of expressing yourself in the workplace. “But you don’t have to wear bold party shoes. You might choose a shoe with coloured piping, to help give you confidence and perform at your best. And there’s lots of research that suggests that if you’re in a positive mind frame, even if you’re heading into a difficult situation you’ll perform better.”

She says wearing heels allows women to maintain their femininity, which can be an advantage in the workplace.

Fox also pooh-poohs the notion high heels are uncomfortable – in fact, on the Shoes of Prey YouTube channel you can watch her run the three kilometres between Bondi and Bronte in four-and-a-half-inch heels. It’s quite the feat.

As to whether heels damage your feet, Fox offers some practical tips. You can find videos on her YouTube channel that show women – and I guess men, too, if they’re into wearing heels – how to strengthen their calves, which are compressed by wearing heels, and stretch their legs after a long day in them.

“Heels raise your stature and confidence; they’re all about allowing women to express themselves in a work situation. I’m all for them,” she says.

What are your tips for surviving in heels all day? Share your story and post a comment.

18 comments

Just don't wear them all the time. I had a friend who used to wear stiletto-type heels pretty much from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed. She never wore any other kind of shoes, even casually, and basically only went barefoot in the shower and to bed. Then she decided to try jogging in order to get fit. Put on a pair of sneakers and tried it and ended up in agony. It turned out that by wearing those high heels so obsessively for so long, she'd caused her achilles tendon to shorten. It took six months of fairly agonising physiotherapy to stretch the tendons out to the point where she could wear flats comfortably.

Commenter

Kit

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 6:51AM

Well done, you have a podiatrist's opinion and the views of someone who makes money from selling high heels. Great journalism.

Do you reckon a podiatrist would want the population to wear shoes that are good for them?

Commenter

Public Joe

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 7:18AM

So, all podiatrists are just after a quick buck and aren't medical professionals who want the best for people? What kind of shoes would you recommend?

Shoes of Prey also sell flat shoes and wedges with a tiny pitch, not just stilettos.

Commenter

Mads

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 9:31AM

This is surprising given that a recent (2012?) review of the academic literature on regular wearing of high heels concluded that there was a significant increase in the likelihood of injury. This is nothing more than common-sense borne out by the research as anyone who's been around racetracks, nightclubs, Julia Gillard etc knows that high heels are unstable and increase the risk of slips, trips and falls

Commenter

Luke V

Location

Braddon

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 7:19AM

Uh huh. I shattered my ankle 2 years ago from rolling it while wearing high heels. My surgeon explained these injuries are very common due to the strain and stress inflicted on the ankle by high heels.

Commenter

Claire

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 8:20AM

I too have a shoe fetish and have a shoe rack built right next to my bed so I can lie in bed and look and admire them. I think the secret with all shoes is to only buy shoes which fit properly and then I find there are few problems even if you wear them all day. At 5'2" I love the extra bit of height from heels. Last year while working as a replacement teacher 4 days a week I wore a different pair of shoes everyday for a term! Was quite insulted when towards the end a colleague said I had on 'sensible' shoes one day. Heels do make you feel good and at 65 I've never had a fall or even a trip because of heels over all those years.

Commenter

Jean

Location

Torquay

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 8:35AM

Maybe you could have interviewed Cylie Williams. who is pretty much the gold standard of podiatry advice on high heels:http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/high-heels-a-painfully-low-point-for-hundreds-20140122-3191x.html

I despair at the idiocy of somebody who would go out jogging in stilettos to make a point.

Commenter

Sigh

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 9:21AM

Okay, so can you now do an article with interviews from foot surgeons and physiotherapists and podiatrists - more than one of each - which has nothing to do with how you feel about yourself in shoes and how helpful they can be?

seriously - are high heels bad for your BODY, yes/no?

this just reads like an advertisement for shoes.

personally I have plenty of shoes - sneakers, heels, platform, wedge, boot. I relaly like them, I like matching them to outfits, I feel different in different ones, I pick the right ones for the right situation - but I would rather hear about calves, ankles, backs than about femininity and boldness.

Commenter

Raida

Location

chewing salty razors

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 9:26AM

Any footwear that potentially impedes evacuation should be banned from all workplaces purely for OH&S reasons.

High-heeled footwear obviously comes under the classification as dangerous footwear in an evacuation scenario.

Commenter

DC

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

March 07, 2014, 9:29AM

LOL!"Evacuation" in case of fire, is what you are referring to, right? Here I was, thinking what in the world high heeled shoes had to do with opening one's bowels...